Special Forces legend, Medal of Honor recipient honored in building dedication at Camp Mackall

Drew Brooks Military editor @DrewBrooks

Thursday

Apr 27, 2017 at 6:10 PMApr 27, 2017 at 7:43 PM

CAMP MACKALL — As a soldier, Col. Robert L. Howard helped define Special Forces to generations while becoming one of the most decorated troops of his day.

And as a legend, he’ll have a lasting impact on the training of all future special operations forces at Fort Bragg.

A central classroom building at the Rowe Training Facility on Camp Mackall was dedicated in honor of the late Medal of Honor recipient on Thursday.

The event, organized by the U.S. Army John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School, was attended by Howard’s family and more than 100 current and former Special Forces soldiers.

Many had stories about Howard, who was wounded 14 times during nearly five years of combat in Vietnam, earned a battlefield commission and was thrice recommended for the nation’s highest award for valor, the Medal of Honor, in the space of a little more than one year.

He was awarded the medal once and also received two Distinguished Service Crosses, a Silver Star, Bronze Star Medal for Valor with three oak leaf clusters and eight Purple Hearts, among many other awards and decorations.

Howard spent 36 years in uniform, officials said. He worked for the Department of Veterans Affairs following his retirement from the Army in 1992 until 2006. He died Dec. 23, 2009, at age 70, following a battle with cancer.

“Contemporaries describe him running alongside an enemy truck one night, tossing a claymore mine into the back among the startled enemy and detonating it,” said Gen. Raymond A. Thomas III, the commander of U.S. Special Operations Command.

“They describe a time he saw two (Viet Cong) on a motorbike throwing a grenade at a group of soldiers,” Thomas said. “He grabbed an M-16 from a startled security guard, calmly dropped to a knee to shoot one of the (Viet Cong) and then chased the other one half a mile to shoot him, too.”

Howard’s fitness and toughness was legendary, Thomas added while relating how — as a company commander in a Ranger Battalion — Howard was known to casually pick pieces of shrapnel out of his arm as he ran without slowing down.

“There have been too many books and movies of late about special operations, but the Col. Bob Howard story almost defies a movie script and his character would be right out of central casting,” the four-star general said.

Howard’s son, Howard Jr., said the dedication was important for the family and a fitting way to honor his father’s legacy.

“He was a very humble individual,” Howard Jr. said. “He didn’t want fame or money. He wanted to inspire soldiers.”

The elder Howard died while his son was at Camp Mackall attending the Special Forces Qualification Course. Howard Jr. served in the Army for six years, including a 15-month deployment to Afghanistan with the 173rd Airborne Brigade Combat Team.

He said his father never pushed him to join the Army, but had an undeniable influence.

“I was never going to go into the military at all,” Howard Jr. said. “But then I had an epiphany — I didn’t want to wake up in 20 years and ask why I didn’t serve.”

Looking back on his father’s legend, Howard Jr. said the claymore story was one of his favorites, but he offered another just as amazing, too.

In Vietnam, his father was knocked unconscious when a bullet ricocheted and struck him in the forehead. A friend thought Howard dead and began praying over the soldier’s body, even as the troops remained under attack.

But Howard soon came to, and after realizing his weapon was broken, convinced a soldier to give him a sidearm.

With the gun in hand, Howard outflanked an enemy machine gun position and, with blood streaming down his face, killed one of three enemy attacks.

He then began shouting at the remaining men to surrender, something they readily did, not knowing that Howard had run out of bullets.

Howard Hall

The Rowe Training Facility hosts anywhere from 400 to 600 soldiers on any given day. Each year, the facility helps train about 8,000 Special Forces, civil affairs and psychological operations troops.

The two-story Howard Hall is a central part of those training pipelines, said Lt. Col. Seth A. Wheeler, commander of the 1st Battalion, 1st Special Warfare Training Group.

The building also hosts basic leader courses for junior noncommissioned officers and specialized classes related to Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE, training.

The classrooms also routinely host troops fresh from battlefields in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria, who share experiences and lessons learned with newer special operations forces.

By dedicating the building to Howard, Wheeler said officials are giving a nod to history while also creating a launch pad for discussion.

He said being able to offer real world examples of valor to modern special operators was an important aspect of the training.

Thomas said as much himself during his remarks.

The general, who oversees the nation’s special operations forces, said he was impressed by the training and the caliber of the soldiers on display at Camp Mackall, which is seven miles west of Fort Bragg and is considered part of the larger installation.

Thomas said soldiers often hear that they are not as good, not as strong as their predecessors.

“It’s something we do… We throw that gauntlet down,” he said. “The reality is they’re as good or better.”

But in Howard, the soldiers have mighty large boots to fill.

“Bob Howard was the quintessential warrior,” Thomas said. “Time and time again he volunteered for some of the most dangerous missions around.”

That included the rescue of downed pilots in enemy territory or missions to retrieve special operations forces in similar predicaments.

It was on one of those missions that Howard performed the actions that would earn him the Medal of Honor.

On Dec. 30, 1968, then-Sgt. 1st Class Howard set out with his unit on a mission to rescue an American soldier missing in enemy territory in Vietnam.

When the platoon came under attack by two companies of North Vietnamese troops, Howard was wounded and his weapon destroyed by a grenade, according to a citation for the Medal of Honor.

When he realized the same attack seriously wounded his platoon leader, Howard took action.

Unable to walk and weaponless, he crawled through a hail of enemy gunfire to retrieve the wounded leader. He administered first aid, even as a bullet struck the lieutenant’s ammunition pouches, detonating several magazines of ammunition.

Howard then dragged the officer to the rest of the unit before rallying the platoon into an organized defense force.

With disregard to his own safety, Howard crawled from position to position, according to officials, administering first aid to the wounded, encouraging defenders and directing their fire on the encircling enemy.

For three-and-a-half hours, Howard’s small force kept the enemy at bay until rescue helicopters could arrive.

Thomas said Howard once spoke about that mission.

“He described a moment when he didn’t want to go back — crawling because he could no longer walk — under enemy fire to help the wounded lieutenant,” Thomas said. “He felt he had to, though, because there was nobody else who could. He said, quote: ‘At least if I was killed they could look back and say that this was a guy who died the way he wanted to. Because I went back.’ ”

Military editor Drew Brooks can be reached at dbrooks@fayobserver.com or 486-3567.

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